Stepping Westward

Related poetry:

1. Fool O Fool, try to carry thyself upon thy own shoulders! O beggar, to come beg at thy own door! Leave all thy burdens on his hands who can bear all, And never look behind in regret. Thy desire at once puts out the light from the lamp it touches with its breath. It is unholy […]...
2. For A Picture Of St. Dorothea I bear a basket lined with grass; I am so light, I am so fair, That men must wonder as I pass And at the basket that I bear, Where in a newly-drawn green litter Sweet flowers I carry, sweets for bitter. Lilies I shew you, lilies none, None in Caesar’s gardens blow, And a […]...
3. To Rich Givers WHAT you give me, I cheerfully accept, A little sustenance, a hut and garden, a little money-these, as I rendezvous with my poems; A traveler’s lodging and breakfast as I journey through The States-Why should I be ashamed to own such gifts? Why to advertise for them? For I myself am not one who bestows […]...
4. Litany You are the bread and the knife, The crystal goblet and the wine… – Jacques Crickillon You are the bread and the knife, The crystal goblet and the wine. You are the dew on the morning grass And the burning wheel of the sun. You are the white apron of the baker, And the marsh […]...
5. Westward on the High-Hilled Plains Westward on the high-hilled plains Where for me the world began, Still, I think, in newer veins Frets the changeless blood of man. Now that other lads than I Strip to bathe on Severn shore, They, no help, for all they try, Tread the mill I trod before. There, when hueless is the west And […]...
6. The Truro Bear There’s a bear in the Truro woods. People have seen it – three or four, Or two, or one. I think Of the thickness of the serious woods Around the dark bowls of the Truro ponds; I think of the blueberry fields, the blackberry tangles, The cranberry bogs. And the sky With its new moon, […]...
7. Where Be Ye Going, You Devon Maid? Where be ye going, you Devon maid? And what have ye there i’ the basket? Ye tight little fairy, just fresh from the dairy, Will ye give me some cream if I ask it? I love your meads, and I love your flowers, And I love your junkets mainly, But ‘hind the door, I love […]...
8. Going Gone Over stone walls and barns, Miles from the black-eyed Susans, Over circus tents and moon rockets You are going, going. You who have inhabited me In the deepest and most broken place, Are going, going. An old woman calls up to you From her deathbed deep in sores, Asking, “What do you keep of her?” […]...
9. Cuckoo Song (Spring begins in southern England on the 14th April, on which date the Old Woman lets the Cuckoo out of her basket at Heathfield Fair locally known as Heffle Cuckoo Fair.) Tell it to the locked-up trees, Cuckoo, bring your song here! Warrant, Act and Summons, please, For Spring to pass along here! Tell old […]...
10. Sestina I have come, alas, to the great circle of shadow, To the short day and to the whitening hills, When the colour is all lost from the grass, Though my desire will not lose its green, So rooted is it in this hardest stone, That speaks and feels as though it were a woman. And […]...
11. To E I have remembered beauty in the night, Against black silences I waked to see A shower of sunlight over Italy And green Ravello dreaming on her height; I have remembered music in the dark, The clean swift brightness of a fugue of Bach’s, And running water singing on the rocks When once in English woods […]...
12. Biscuit The dog has cleaned his bowl And his reward is a biscuit, Which I put in his mouth Like a priest offering the host. I can’t bear that trusting face! He asks for bread, expects Bread, and I in my power Might have given him a stone....
13. THE SPINNER As I calmly sat and span, Toiling with all zeal, Lo! a young and handsome man Pass’d my spinning-wheel. And he praised, what harm was there? Sweet the things he said Praised my flax-resembling hair, And the even thread. He with this was not content, But must needs do more; And in twain the thread […]...
14. From "Vashti&quot WHAT thing shall be held up to woman’s beauty? Where are the bounds of it? Yea, what is all The world, but an awning scaffolded amid The waste perilous Eternity, to lodge This Heaven-wander’d princess, woman’s beauty? The East and West kneel down to thee, the North And South; and all for thee their shoulders […]...
15. The Young Ones, Flip Side In tight pants, tight skirts, Stretched or squeezed, Youth hurts, Crammed in, bursting out, Flesh will sing And hide its doubt In nervous hips, hopping glance, Usurping rouge, Provoking stance. Put off, or put on, Youth hurts. And then It’s gone....
16. 'Tis not that Dying hurts us so ‘Tis not that Dying hurts us so ‘Tis Living hurts us more But Dying is a different way A Kind behind the Door The Southern Custom of the Bird That ere the Frosts are due Accepts a better Latitude We are the Birds that stay. The Shrivers round Farmers’ doors For whose reluctant Crumb We […]...
17. Don't put up my Thread and Needle Don’t put up my Thread and Needle I’ll begin to Sew When the Birds begin to whistle Better Stitches so These were bent my sight got crooked When my mind is plain I’ll do seams a Queen’s endeavor Would not blush to own Hems too fine for Lady’s tracing To the sightless Knot Tucks of […]...
18. The Lily Night after night Darkness Enters the face Of the lily Which, lightly, Closes its five walls Around itself, And its purse Of honey, And its fragrance, And is content To stand there In the garden, Not quite sleeping, And, maybe, Saying in lily language Some small words We can’t hear Even when there is no […]...
19. I Know I Have Been Happiest I know I have been happiest at your side; But what is done, is done, and all’s to be. And small the good, to linger dolefully- Gayly it lived, and gallantly it died. I will not make you songs of hearts denied, And you, being man, would have no tears of me, And should I […]...
20. The Song of the Shirt With fingers weary and worn, With eyelids heavy and red, A woman sat, in unwomanly rags, Plying her needle and thread Stitch! stitch! stitch! In poverty, hunger, and dirt, And still with a voice of dolorous pitch She sang the “Song of the Shirt.” “Work! work! work! While the cock is crowing aloof! And work […]...
21. Gravelly Run I don’t know somehow it seems sufficient To see and hear whatever coming and going is, Losing the self to the victory of stones and trees, Of bending sandpit lakes, crescent Round groves of dwarf pine: For it is not so much to know the self As to know it as it is known by […]...
22. Lotus On the day when the lotus bloomed, alas, my mind was straying, And I knew it not. My basket was empty and the flower remained unheeded. Only now and again a sadness fell upon me, and I started up from my Dream and felt a sweet trace of a strange fragrance in the south wind. […]...
23. Womanhood She slides over The hot upholstery Of her mother’s car, This schoolgirl of fifteen Who loves humming & swaying With the radio. Her entry into womanhood Will be like all the other girls’- A cigarette and a joke, As she strides up with the rest To a brick factory Where she’ll sew rag rugs From […]...
24. The Basket I The inkstand is full of ink, and the paper lies White and unspotted, In the round of light thrown by a candle. Puffs of darkness Sweep into The corners, and keep rolling through the room behind his chair. The Air Is silver and pearl, for the night is liquid with moonlight. See how the […]...
25. Her Kind I have gone out, a possessed witch, Haunting the black air, braver at night; Dreaming evil, I have done my hitch Over the plain houses, light by light: Lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind. A woman like that is not a woman, quite. I have been her kind. I have found the warm caves in […]...
26. An Apple-Gathering I plucked pink blossoms from mine apple tree And wore them all that evening in my hair: Then in due season when I went to see I found no apples there. With dangling basket all along the grass As I had come I went the selfsame track: My neighbours mocked me while they saw me […]...
27. The Wood Nymph A glint of her hair or a flash of her shoulder – That is the most I can boast to have seen, Then all is lost as the shadows enfold her, Forest glades making a screen of their green, Could I cast off all the cares of tomorrow – Could I forget all the fret […]...
28. The Thread Something is very gently, Invisibly, silently, Pulling at me-a thread Or net of threads Finer than cobweb and as Elastic. I haven’t tried The strength of it. No barbed hook Pierced and tore me. Was it Not long ago this thread Began to draw me? Or Way back? Was I Born with its knot about […]...
29. Mrs. Purkapile He ran away and was gone for a year. When he came home he told me the silly story Of being kidnapped by pirates on Lake Michigan And kept in chains so he could not write me. I pretended to believe it, though I knew very well What he was doing, and that he met […]...
30. THE PARCAE; OR, THREE DAINTY DESTINIES:THE ARMILET Three lovely sisters working were, As they were closely set, Of soft and dainty maiden-hair, A curious Armilet. I, smiling, ask’d them what they did, Fair Destinies all three? Who told me they had drawn a thread Of life, and ’twas for me. They shew’d me then how fine ’twas spun And I replied thereto; […]...
31. The First Dream The Wind is ghosting around the house tonight And as I lean against the door of sleep I begin to think about the first person to dream, How quiet he must have seemed the next morning As the others stood around the fire Draped in the skins of animals Talking to each other only in […]...
32. Thought Of Ph – a At News Of Her Death NOT a line of her writing have I, Not a thread of her hair, No mark of her late time as dame in her dwelling, whereby I may picture her there; And in vain do I urge my unsight To conceive my lost prize At her close, whom I knew when her dreams were upbrimming […]...
33. I was the slightest in the House I was the slightest in the House I took the smallest Room At night, my little Lamp, and Book And one Geranium So stationed I could catch the Mint That never ceased to fall And just my Basket Let me think I’m sure That this was all I never spoke unless addressed And then, ’twas […]...
34. Thoughts Of Phena at news of her death Not a line of her writing have I Not a thread of her hair, No mark of her late time as dame in her dwelling, whereby I may picture her there; And in vain do I urge my unsight To conceive my lost prize At her close, whom I knew […]...
35. Joey I thought I would go daft when Joey died. He was my first, and wise beyond his years. For nigh a hundred nights I cried and cried, Until my weary eyes burned up my tears. Willie and Rosie tried to comfort me: A woeful, weeping family were we. I was a widow with no friends […]...
36. Jump Rope There is menace In its relentless course, round and round, Describing an ellipsoid, An airy prison in which a young girl Is incarcerated. Whom will she marry? Whom will she love? The rope, like a snake, Has the gift of divination, Yet reveals only a hint, a single initial. But what if she never misses? […]...
37. I Remembered There never was a mood of mine, Gay or heart-broken, luminous or dull, But you could ease me of its fever And give it back to me more beutiful. In many another soul I broke the bread, And drank the wine and played the happy guest, But I was lonely, I remembered you; The heart […]...
38. Day IN day from some titanic past it seems As if a thread divine of memory runs; Born ere the Mighty One began his dreams, Or yet were stars and suns. But here an iron will has fixed the bars; Forgetfulness falls on earth’s myriad races: No image of the proud and morning stars Looks at […]...
39. Gardening Pruning the rosebush The ache of the summer heat On my shoulders, The feel of the living stalk Between fingers, Petals – one, another, Then another Seek ground, life Not strong enough to hold on. Whether it’s blood Or petals, the gift Of time is a thread I stand on, Feet covered In the soft […]...
40. To the Snake Green Snake, when I hung you round my neck And stroked your cold, pulsing throat As you hissed to me, glinting Arrowy gold scales, and I felt The weight of you on my shoulders, And the whispering silver of your dryness Sounded close at my ears Green Snake I swore to my companions that certainly […]...